“Gut microbes can help or hinder cancer patients’ response to immunotherapy, two new studies suggested.

“In 112 melanoma patients undergoing anti-PD-1 immunotherapy, those with a high diversity of gut microbes had not yet reached median progression-free survival (PFS) after nearly 2 years, because less than half of them had progressed, while median PFS in the low-diversity group was 188 days (hazard ratio 3.57, 95% CI 1.02-12.52, P<0.05), said Jennifer Wargo, MD, of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and colleagues.”